Contradictions
by the ticking clock
Summary: They look for Narnia in England. Sometimes, they catch fleeting glimpses of something that could be magic-a tree branch quivering out of the corner of their eye, the hint of a lion's roar in a thunderclap...Oneshot.


In a swirl of closed doors, dusty coats, sharp elbows and clumsy feet, they are hurled from their kingdom and back onto cold wooden floors. At first they do not register the difference at all-only that their hands sting from the slap of the impact and that the air smells different-somehow less clean and sharp.

Lucy is the first to notice. She'd been the one who had discovered Narnia first, after all. She knows it's distinct scent, the shiver of its air, and this place is distinctly NOT Narnia. Slowly, she lifts her head and looks around.

Something like bile burns in the back of her throat, and she half scrambles, half jumps to her feet, swaying on legs that are far to small, grouping blindly for Edmund's hand with fingers that are so much tinier than she ever remembers being.

They are not in Narnia anymore.

* * *

They learn to find Narnia in England.

Lucy looks for it in the outdoors-the chill of snow in the winter, the clean taste of cold on her tongue. Long walks across the grounds of the mansion, spinning with her arms flung wide until she is so dizzy the trees blur with the blue of the sky and she can almost pretend they are dancing. Play fights with Edmund that aren't really play at all-they are sparring matches as she learns how to maneuver this child-body she is trapped in now.

* * *

Edmund finds Narnia at night.

His dreams have always been particularly vivid-as a very small child he remembers crawling into Mother and Father's bed whimpering almost every night. In Narnia they had been no different. His dreams are stark and clear, each bursting with color and tangible emotion. In England, he tosses and turns in his bed and dreams of Narnia.

The Narnia of his dreams is a darker place-where the White Witch rules with her icy touch and compelling voice. He drowns in her, allows her to touch him, to stroke back his hair and trail seductive fingers across his back. He let's her tease him and taunt him and beat him, and Aslan roars in the distance-raw fury and helpless, horrible disappointment.

Edmund wakes up screaming, and Peter rushes in, disheveled and worried. It's still so odd, seeing him as a boy. Edmund is used to Peter as the man, Peter who's voice is deep and soothing and wise. This Peter sits beside him on the bed and tousles his hair. "We're here now," he says. "In England."

It is supposed to be reassuring, and some nights it is, when the darker parts of Narnia are caught in the back of his mind and his throat is far to tight and his chest aches and his eyes sting with the memory of her touch.

"I know," Edmund whispers. "I know."

* * *

Susan finds Narnia in books.

Not the actual place, of course, but she reads fairy tales until her eyes sting because she needs to find that sweetness that can only exist in places that one imagines. Narnia had (has? she doesn't know what to think anymore) that sweetness, a sense of pure enchanment that tastes like sea air and iron on the tip of her tongue. She reads and she writes and she wonders about fairy tales, and if there is any truth to them.

She practice with a bow. Her school does not have an archery club, but she goes hunting across the manor grounds for wood and makes one herself. Lucy finds her whittling on the front steps and bows, grinning. "Queen Susan," she says, and there is something in her voice that is nothing like the little girl Susan sees before her. There's something _more _there, something ancient and wise, and Susan smiles back. "Queen Lucy," she says, and dips her head.

For half a moment she tastes that magic again, sharp and sudden in her mouth as the wind blows, and she wonders how she ever imagined that Narnia could have been a fairy tale.

Then it is gone, and she is Susan the girl again, knife and stick in hand. Sighing, she goes back to work.

She fires arrows every day into an old tree stump. Sometimes she draws and releases in raw fury at the unfairness of it all. Sometimes she is calm.

And sometimes she weeps as she practices, the tears silent and relentless. She breathes in and tastes hollow, smoke-stained England air.

There is no magic here.

* * *

Peter finds Narnia in fights.

It is a stupid thing to do, and he knows it. A part of him knows that Aslan would cuff him across the head and growl at him for being so naive and childish.

But Peter _is _a child now.

He punches those stupid children who laugh at things that aren't funny and don't understand the first thing about war. He ducks blows and throws back elbows, the adrenaline and thrill of battle humming through his veins. He's so frusterated and furious at everything-he hates being treated like a child.

Those sharp words, "act your age!" hit him like a punch in the gut.

He stands, nearly doubled over, while the boys run off, throwing him dirty glances .

_Act your age. _

Peter is quite sure what his age is anymore. He is a man trapped in a boy's body. He's lived through wars, he's consoled centaurs and fought witches.

He doesn't belong here.

It is the simple truth, that tears at him. He doesn't belong here. Not like the others. Lucy seems to embrace the friends she makes here. Edmund, though he understands Peter's raw fury and frusteration, doesn't get into fights every other day. Susan has lifted her chin and moved on with grace.

So why can't he?

_Once a King or Queen of Narnia..._

Closing his eyes, Peter leans his head against the school's hollow walls.

_Always a King or Queen. _

Then _why _was he trapped here? Trapped in his younger self, in a place riddled with bombs and children who didn't understand what magic was like?

Wiping the blood off his knuckles, Peter turns and heads back to his last class of the day. When he fights, he can remember the thrill of fighting along side the Narnians, of Edmund, ever by his side, of Susan her eyes like steel.

He feels _alive._

* * *

They look for Narnia in England.

Sometimes, they catch fleeting glimpses of something that could be magic-a tree branch quivering out of the corner of their eye, the hint of a lion's roar in a thunderclap.

Really, though, they are pretending. They are pretending to find little hints of home, because it is the only thing they have.

_Once a King or Queen of Narnia, always a King or Queen. _

But what happens when Narnia spits you back out?

Are you still a King or Queen with no kingdom to rule?


End file.
